A site for my handmade cards, accompanied by my photos and written meanderings which are occasionally witty, often tongue-in-cheek, and rarely profound. Beginning in June 2013, you'll also see lots of NBUS, which is an acronym I coined for Never-Before-Used-Schtuff. Feel free to join in, use the acronym, and use up your NBUS too! Thanks for coming by! Have a beverage and enjoy!

Maria is a native of Michigan USA. She moved to Germany over 20 years ago and she started her in blog in 2012. She is a well-respected and oft-publicized card artist, so if you aren't familiar with her work, prepare to have your Inspiration Meter pegged when you go to visit her!! And she's funny, too!

As I am wont to do on these occasions, I have taken this opera tuna tee to copyliment Maria with a DJKASE of one of her cards. Again, it was an almost impossible task to choose just one card out of the dozens of her cards in my folder to CASE. In the end, I went with this one, posted over two years ago on March 5, 2012.

Maria's card

Now Maria does amazing works of art with designs that will often leave you shaking your head in admiration at how her creative mind works, yet the card I chose is a fairly simple OLC. I chose it because of the birds dressed in text and because I liked her sediment for our own party in her honor today.

It turns out I don't have the stamp she used of the texty birds, but I do have a bird die and I also have a few pages of actual book text that Maria sent to me quite some time ago. I've used a bit on unposted cards I've made, but I've always wanted to make a card specifically for Maria, using those book pages. Today is the day!!

And here is my DJKASE:

Darnell's card (DJKASE #14)

You will note that the bird on the left chirps German. She was made from one of the pages Maria sent me. The bird on the right chirps English. We are happily chatting and chirping among colored sequints and fun watercolored clouds. Even though I diluted the inks with water, the clouds were still a bit bold which I thought took away from the focus pocus on the birds, so I added a layer of swirly vellum to make them recede a bit.

I hope you are delighted with your birthday party, Maria, and that you are pleased with my card! It was an honor to DJKASE you! Thank you for your friendship and encouraging comments!

If you would like to join Maria's surprise birthday party, all you have to do is link up your card with the InLinkz button over on Shirley Bee's website, Shirley Bee's Stamping Stuff. Thank you, Shirley, for being the party headquarters!!

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The colors used in today's DJKASE card for Maria were taken from the current challenge at The Color Throwdown, so I'm linking my card there at the very last minute. Hold the door!

And the current challenge at The Card Concept is to make a birthday card, so I'm also linking my card there. My card is clean and layered (CAL) this time.

Finally, I haven't had a chance to play in one of my favorite challenges for a while and I'm happy that my card works for it this week because I made three clouds and used three sequints. It is Less Is More where the brief is to use "three of something" on our cards and visit at least three other gallery participants. That's EZPZ and a whole lot of fun!

***Please remember to click on the challenge links for all the rules, sponsor, and prize information. I hope you can join in!~~~

New Friends Corner

I'm delighted today to introduce you to two more friends!

Tamiko McCurry (MEKOfoSHOW) of Miko's Spot. Tamiko has been blogging since 2012. She doesn't post often, but when she does post, it's sensational! She is not only a card artist, she is an artist, period. Her creations are out of this world to me!!

Lynne Mizera of Scrapbook Lynne's. Lynne blogged a few times in 2010-12, but she really took off in 2013. She is a fun-living, fun-loving, multi-talented, and published card artist. Her creativity is enjoyed by several design teams, as well as her readers!

Your visits to these ladies will be fun and inspiring. Thank you, Tamiko and Lynne, and welcome to the Playhouse!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy. LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling:

Click CTL + Home.Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post.Click Page Down to reach the end of the post.Click Comments and the pop-up box opens.Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel!Mwah!

Stunning card using Maria's to case. Loved your idea of the bilingual birds too. Just goes to show, doesn't it, we can all be friends, no matter the walk of life. I think card makers should be running the world, no? We'd all get along a lot better! Enuff poly stuff. Your vellum clouds are beauts - as were the birdies. Will see if Blogger will let me go see & join your new friends. Happy Birthday to Maria, and Happy Sunday to YOU! Hugs & TFS

What a nice post today, Darnell! Love what you created! I wish I'd known you lived in Germany! When we travel, I always try to meet a blogging friend. We were in Weisbaden, Cologne, Bonn, Rudesheim, Heidelberg, and many other cities in December, and again in March! If we go again, I will certainly contact you! Hugs...

Just love your birdy card. It's a perfect compliment to Maria's, so now you two can just chirp away like a couple of tweetie pies. Super clever to use the pages as die cuts. Sensational card, my dear friend! Way to DJKase! You go girl. I know Maria will adore this extra special card. Bev

Wow Darnell, what a fabulous card you have made for Maria, how clever to put one birdy in English and one in German - very, very clever indeed and makes it so personal. I think this may be one of my favourites of your cards now! Hugs, Annie xx

what a great card Darnell and I love how you've used the text in both languages perfectly fitting for your friends birthday ..she will adore it me thinks...also love the velum swirls on the clouds a great idea .I hope you have a good week ahead ..off to check out your new followers crafty hugs Andrea x

Fantastic DJCASE! Birds are one of my favorites and I fell in love with your printed variety. Don't know about German & English but birds do have different dialects depending where they are found. Makes it harder to identify a specific species that has a wide range. Love your wonderful card as I'm sure Maria did too!

Okay, who could not LOVE these international birdies!! Brilliant idea to incorporate the German text that Maria herself gave you!! She is going to flip when she sees it (or she flipped when she saw it, which is more likely the case since I'm commenting so late in the day - ha!). Fab, fab card, Darnell!!!

How pretty....you have created such a lovely case of your friends card!! The birds look awesome and I love how you used the challenge colors for the clouds!!! Thanks for joining us for the Color Throwdown Challenge!!!!!

My favorite challenges are the sketch or case ones. I also like to see what others make using the same source of inspiration. That's why I love your case posts, and I also think it's a nice thing to do as you give credit to others work as well doing this. Looking forward to seeing more of your cards:)

A lovely DJKASEing of Maria's great bird card. I love the little different colour clouds, and the birds with the English and German script is a great idea. Happy Birthday to Maria. Hope you had a good weekend Darnell. x

Very nice cards and post and I enjoyed looking around your blog.For whatever reason I cannot join this site/follow with the google/blogger button so I'm one of you newest Bloglovin followers. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Ach du meine Gute das ist wunderbar... Did you hear those birds chirping German?!?!? Musta been Hitler outside the playhouse window (tee hee). You. Are. A. Dear. Took me awhile to get here (just couldn't wallow through on Mom and Dad's ancient PC) but oh what a delight. It is so special to me that I've been DJKASEd. And using stinky German book text too! Hope I have the opera tuna tee to shoot that sentiment right back at ya one of these days...

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About Me

I have been stamping and making cards since 2002. I've been married 47 years to Kevin, known herein as "Mister." Our son Daniel and his wife Rachel have twin sons Henry and Adam. Card-making and blogging are wonderful hobbies which have brought me noodles of friends! Oh, and I have an imaginary hamster named Hammy who keeps me in line. Thank you for visiting, joining, and commenting! It will be my pleasure to return the flavor!!